Latvia evaluates the effects of the loss of cargo from Russia

The head of the Latvian state company “Latvian Railway” (LDz) Maris Kleinbergs announced a decline in freight traffic in the country due to the fact that Russia redirected the flow of goods to its own ports, writes RIA Novosti.

According to Kleinbergs, the company plans to slightly increase the volume of transportation, but it will not be able to achieve the indicators of previous years.

“This year we plan to transport about 25 million tons of cargo, which is about half as much as in the previous year. In the coming years, we are planning a slight increase. But I do not see an opportunity to replace the volumes of cargo from Russia that we have lost,” he explained head of LDz.

He noted that in previous years, cargo from Russia accounted for up to 70 percent of the total freight traffic on the Latvian railway. The decline was due to a decrease in the volume of transportation of oil, oil products and coal.

“The main reason for the fall is that more and more coal is being handled at the terminals in the port of Ust-Luga in the Leningrad Region,” Kleinbergs stressed.

In addition, by the end of the year, Latvian Railway will have to lay off 1,500 employees – about 24 percent of all employees. To date, about a thousand people have lost their jobs.